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FOR MANY THIRD-LEVEL students, finding a job or position once they graduate can be a daunting prospect, even more so when it’s a position in their chosen field.
To get a job you need experience and when some companies advertise internships that are free or only offer expenses, it can make a difficult prospect even harder.
It’s something that Shake.io is hoping to change. Having launched back in March, and been in development since May 2014, the service has seen 650 students sign up and 20 companies advertising positions on it so far.
The important part: all positions are paid graduate positions and internships. A conscious decision made by the two co-founders Kevin Holler and Thomas Cullen.
“We decided from day one, we weren’t going to allow any company to put up unpaid positions, unless it’s strictly speaking a volunteer position,” explained Holler. “Paid internships was the way we were going to go… we were going to highlight the companies who were offering paid internships and put them out there in front of all the students in Ireland.”
Both Holler and Cullen spent months developing the algorithm that powers the service. Instead of offering a standard jobs listing, it matches up students with jobs and vice versa by analysing their skills and experiences.
Instead of presenting jobs that you might be interested in, it filters them down to a few specific jobs that suit you best. For the companies, it presents those who are best suited to the job while paying a monthly subscription fee to advertise said positions.
For something like this to work, a lot of weight is placed on the algorithm to accurately assess candidates and deliver accurate results. More than eight months was spent developing it, and both it and the information provided by companies and students has the potential to be more valuable than a standard CV.
There’s a lot of valuable information to work with if done right. When a company posts a job, the algorithm chooses the right candidates by looking at those who are interested, what skills they have – both essential and optional ones that can contribute to a position – and whether they have the projects and experiences to back their skills up.
There’s already a lot to work with, but there’s significant potential to expand if it can prove its system works.
This is really only the beginning of how complex this is going to be and how the algorithm is going to become as we add things… there’s this whole other breadth of experience and things people have done, we can add more using data into how we match people up and calculate how relevant they are.
While the focus is mainly on students, there is a distinct possibility of it evolving into a standalone jobs site. Third-level students will eventually move on to bigger and better things and it would be a waste to have a system like this and it only being relevant for a few years of a person’s life.
Holler says that moving into this area would “be the natural course that will happen further down the line” but for now, they’re focused on improving the algorithm so more people start using the service.
The positions themselves are mainly tech-based since that was an area they were familiar with as well as deciding to focus on one specific industry and get that right. If they can show how well it works for one area, it would show its value and encourage companies from other industries to sign up as well.
So far, the focus is on Ireland, but it’s looking at the US, starting with Boston first as there are close to 60 colleges and universities there, giving it a good place to prove its product works.
There’s a specialised app on the way and come September, it will place a greater focus on graduate positions as students enter their final year.
Until then, the aim is to improve the core product and increase the number of companies and students using the service, becoming more than just a jobs portal for students.
“Down the line, we want Shake to be the platform for anyone who’s changing career or looking down a new path they want to take,” says Holler. “Shake has the data and the knowledge to help you look down these different career path… [and] help them find the right career path.”
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So eh like a recruitment agency you mean?
I stopped reading at paid internships…These people should be ashamed of themselves…Young people do not deserve a wage, They must work for free for 12 years before they make the basic pay rate….lucky they aint charged for experience..This is why I became a TD. to put a stop to people having to much by taxing you and ensuring that the government has control of the people, another reason democracy is out of date!
Rather than pushing the sense of entitlement agenda, how about pushing one surrounding old elbow grease values of hard work, training and focus for our young and inexperienced, to get ahead in this competitive world.
Remember apprenticeships, which were all the rage in the different business sectors in bygone days – a system that actually works in well-run economies such as Germany. Our Government should be encouraging a return here to improve quality and standards of workmanship eg in Construction industry.
It’s cuckoo-land economics to think that youngsters can walk into well-paid jobs just because they hold University Degrees, or just because they have reached the age of 20.
We have enough older citizens already in Ireland with that sense of entitlement mindset, without adding to their number by indoctrinating those in their early twenties.
Our state needs to be operating in surplus each year before the purse strings are released too much, to lessen the burden on future generations. FFS , borrowing more money to finance increases in public sector pay – where’s the sense in that ?
Rant over!
Anyway , good luck to the young movers and shakers at shake. io – it seems like a great idea for a business!
Well done lads, great to see young people taking initiative to help secure themselves and others jobs. Best of luck with it!
This is an excellent idea and I wish them the best of luck. The whole C.V process is completely outdated and doesn’t give any real indication of whether an employee will be a good fit for a company. In my opinion far too much attention is paid to whether someone has a pristine work record and able to account for every single day that they have been of working age.
I reckon companies are missing out on employing excellent candidates that could be great in a role simply because their might be a few gaps in their C.V. In fairness who stays in the one job nowadays.
This type of process allows the employer to look further than academic and work history and get an idea of the type of individual and whether they are truly motivated.
Go n-éirigh go geal leo.
so they solved their own graduate job problem for sure :)
Cool story bro
Be great to see the software adapted for and used by social welfare to match actual skills with vacancies..instead of pushing people onto courses that they have no aptidude for..I know of several former trades people/semi skilled put onto computer courses etc..which they have no gra for and it only drains them..confidence wise etc..and the same can be said for former retail etc..building stone walls etc..ridicilious..
The first time I have seen the .io domain being used.
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